Director's Cut Blog with Frank Macek

The 46th annual Lower Great Lakes Emmy Award Nominations was announced on Thursday, April 30. Channel 3 News was nominated in several important categories including best overall newscasts for Channel 3 News at 6 & 11, Weekend Mornings and Weekend Evenings. Congratulations to our nominees. This year's awards will be given out on June 27, 2015 at the Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. Newscast - Evening - Market 1-20: Channel 3 News at 11 pm - Best Overall Newscast (Julie Flynn, Grant deBruin, Russ Mitchell, Kris Pickel, Chris Tye, Brian Crane, Dave Chudowsky) Newscast - Evening - Market 1-20: Channel 3 New at 6 pm - Best Overall Newscast (Jonathan Adkins, Russ Mitchell, Kris Pickel, Meg Hambach, Julie Ocepek, Sara Shookman, Tom Beres) Newscast- Morning/Daytime - March 1-20:  TJ Lane Escape and Capture (Mark Bogden, Heather Brumbaugh, Ryan Haidet, Jennifer Jordan, Maureen Kyle, Lynna Lai, Kayla Landolph, Brooke Whitney, Will Ujek) Weekend Newscast - Mar...

By Frank Macek Nielsen started utilizing its controversial Local People Meters (LPMs) in several new markets today including Cleveland. What this means to us is a new way of measuring viewers of our local television programs in a way that Nielsen says will offer a truer representation of actual viewing audiences. Not all stations are convinced though this will be better. In the past, Nielsen recruited viewers by phone & mail to fill out a paper diary for a one week period during sweeps - a four week period during the main months of February, May, July and November. This amounted to about 1400 diaries during the survey month or about 400 households being included in the sample size. With LPMs, viewers tell an electronic meter that they are watching while the meter tracks their viewing habits. The sample size becomes 600 LPMs in a market. Nielsen now goes door to door to recruit participants. And they hope the sample will include a better portion of those who are younger, busier and ...

This afternoon, an intense thunderstorm over downtown Cleveland led to 4.45" of rain falling in about an hour. This led to severe flooding including at the Channel 3 Digital Broadcast Center. The basement parking garage had 6 to 7 inches of standing water at one point. Also, many cars surrounding the station were partially-submerged under water, while many roads were temporarily closed until the water could run off. Sportstime Ohio, which has a studio in the basement, was almost forced to higher ground during a live broadcast of "All Bets Are Off with Bruce Drennan" because of the flooding situation. However, they continued broadcasting as former Tribe Skipper, Mike Hargrove, was being interviewed by Bruce. To see our storm coverage @ 6 PM: CLICK HERE To see a live report from Paul Thomas @ 7 PM: CLICK HERE To watch video for amazing pictures of swamped roadways: CLICK HERE These are pictures from the Channel 3 Studios & Parking Garage.... These are other pictures ar...

Updated: 5:15 PM WKYC General Manager Brooke Spectorsky has just announced to the staff the permanent appointment of Acting News Director Rita Andolsen to News Director - officially beginning a new chapter for Channel 3 News. Rita has worked hard in a variety of management roles in the WKYC newsroom since coming to Channel 3 from WJW-TV 8. Most recently, she had been Assistant News Director until Mike McCormick left. Congratulations to Rita! ------------------- Here is a portion of the official press release from WKYC: "Channel 3 is pleased to announce the appointment of Rita Andolsen as News Director," said WKYC President and General Manager Brooke Spectorsky. Rita has served as Interim News Director since May. "She knows Cleveland, WKYC and has worked closely with almost every single person in the newsroom over the past seven years," added Spectorsky, "and I know she is passionate about leading WKYC into the future as we develop new ways to reach our audience...